Look at the proximity factor. In one case the two words are right next to each other as an exact phrase, and in the other case they're separated by another word, even if it's such a common one. Try both searches in quotes and see the difference.

word order and proximity

"of" is a very common word, but there's a difference between "pork loin" and "loin of pork"

See? Then there's plural and singular differences - any number of possible combinations with any phrase. Try it out on some more likely search terms and make comparisons. Also check for frequenty in page titles all different ways and see the difference in results.

It definately is the proximity factor that gives you the different results.

I actually optimise for keyword1 extra-keyword keyword2 simply because my site is location specific, so many people will be looking for something like widgets in Albania so if I want to score well on that phrase why waste a stopword? I get the same effect with optimising for widgets guide Albania. That way I still score on the widgets in albania search and also score on widgets guide.

This been going on for a long time. I'm surprised that very few have noticed this.

It's like doing SEO for 'How can I...widget1 widget2'. Widget1 and widget2 are the target keywords but in a competitive area, if you have the stop words; how, i, can, in, etc... in your Title or H1, there's a slight boost in ranking when the searchers uses a natural query as compared to a query 'widget1 widget2'.

Supposedly, Google would return the same serp but there's always a slight change in ranking. A good strategy if your site is coming up say #8 of keywords 'widget1 widget2'.

what I am referring to is the scenario when the user enters: information on widget

google will then give the pages with title: information on widget information for widget information at widget information guide widget information laughable widget information anyword widget etc. the same relevance. This does not seem to have to do with the fact that the word in between is a stop word but simply that there is a word in between, thus directly linked with the proximity filter. I stumbled across this looking at my logs one day realising that loads of people were coming into my site on widgets in AlxLand and I had not seoed for that. That is when I realised that my page title: widgets incorporated AlxLand was scoring the same as if it were widgets in AlxLand.

so a bit of tweaking and now with my new title: widgets guide AlxLand I score not only on all the searches where google drops the stop word, but ALSO on the searches for widgets guide and guide AlxLand. getting in the extra keyword and taking into account that my user base tends to have a stopword inbetween my two main keywords.

I also have noticed that once google drops the stop word and gives the proximity filter the control that the order of the keywords loses some significance. not totally, but if SEOed for keyword1 x keyword2, then keyword2 x keyword1 will not do too badly either.

the perfect title I found is: widgets guide AlxLand¦Widgets for all tastes

that way I get good rankings for: widgets in AlxLand AlxLand widgets widgets guide AlxLand

But this is extremely specific to my sector (travel guides). You might want to think of other words to use to fill in the stop word space. Just remember, you won't score quite as nice on keyword1 keyword2. but with the right amount of thought going into your title and repeating (to a minimal extent possible) your primary KW you should still score well on two word searches.

Because a site optimised for 'information guide widgets' does not rank the same as a site optimised for 'information on widgets'.

No, it does! That is exactly what I am saying. I could be totally wrong of course, but in my past experience I have found that a site opimised for informaiton guide widgets will score exactly the same as information on widgets if the search entered into google is of the form: information stopword widgets.

of course if the user enterd informaiton guide widgets a totally different SERP will turn up but that is the good thing, as we also come up on that page too!

the only benefit I can see in optimising a page for "information on widgets" is if you want to score well on that search term with the quotation marks explicitly included in the search.

"Google ignores common words and characters such as "where" and "how", as well as certain single digits and single letters, because they tend to slow down your search without improving the results. Google will indicate if a common word has been excluded by displaying details on the results page below the search box."

If Google truly ignorescommon words the results would be the same? The fact that they are different must mean common words are NOT ingnored.

If Google truly ignorescommon words the results would be the same? The fact that they are different must mean common words are NOT ingnored.

Common words are simply replaced by a wild card, i.e. 'keyword1 commonword keyword2' is replaced by 'keyword1 * keyword2'. However, (as already explained in detail) this is not the same as 'keyword1 keyword2'

4eyes, I could not give exact proof, as It was a phenomena that I noticed on the fly, looked into and my efforts proved me well. Now if a competitor should concentrate his efforts on informaiton on widgets, would he beat me. well, to say the honest truth I don't know. as none of my competitors are that hard core in their seo tactics.

Fair enough, my statements are not based on reproducable proof. I'll go and do a bit of testing myself, and try out the two versions to make sure I can back up any claims I make. In the meanwhile let me rephrase:

I have noticed, that if the competition is not fiercely optimising for keyword1 stopword keyword2, you can achieve very good results with optimising for keyword1 anyotherkeyword keyword2 in keyword1 stopword keyword2 SERPS. Giving you the added benefit of scoring well on stopword incusive searches as well as adding the extrakeyword to your basket of keywords you are optimising for.

took me some time to do my research, but using following search terms you can see quite clearly that the search term with a real word inbetween scores close to the one with the stop word. Also, from the same website there are versions of the page with the stop word instead of "guide", as can be seen in the extra results. That shows that a page with the same PR and similar setup scores equally with stopword or simply a word inbetween. This all sounds a bit confusing but I hope it makes some sense.

the Keywords for this example are Jobs in Barcelona. the result I am referring too can't be missed, it is th eone with the star.

I know that posting search terms is agains the rules, but I can't figure out any other way of making my point.